In the selection of the jury we had the advantage. None of the roughs could get on the panel to hang the verdict, for the simple reason that they were all too well known. The miners cautiously refused to endorse any one whose general respectability was not known to them. I found myself one of those selected.
A slight barrier consisting of a pole thrown across one corner of the room set aside a jury box. We took our places therein. Men crowded to the pole, talking for our benefit, cursing steadily, and uttering the most frightful threats.
I am not going to describe that most turbulent afternoon. The details are unessential to the main point, which was our decision. Counsel was appointed by the court from among the numerous ex-lawyers. The man who took charge of the defence was from New York, and had 329 served some ten years in the profession before the gold fever took him. I happen to know that he was a most sober-minded, steady individual, not at all in sympathy with the rougher elements; but, like most of his ilk, he speedily became so intensely interested in plying his profession that he forgot utterly the justice of the case. He defended the lawless element with all the tricks at his command. For that reason Woodruff was prevented from testifying at all, except as to his ownership of the cattle; so that the effect of his pathetic story was lost. Dr. Rankin had no chance to appear. This meeting should have marked the awakening of public spirit to law and order; and if all the elements of the case had been allowed to come before the decent part of the community in a common-sense fashion, I am quite sure it would have done so. But two lawyers got interested in tangling each other up with their technicalities, and the result was that the real significance of the occasion was lost to sight. The lawyer for the defence, pink and warm and happy, sat down quite pleased with his adroitness. A few of us, and the desperadoes, alone realized what it all meant.
We retired to Randall’s little room to deliberate. Not a man of the twelve of us had the first doubt as to the guilt of the prisoners. We took a ballot. The result was eleven for acquittal and one for conviction. I had cast the one vote for conviction.
We argued the matter for three hours.
“There’s no doubt the men are guilty,” said one. “That isn’t the question. The question is, dare we declare it?”
330“It amounts to announcing our own death sentence,” argued another. “Those fellows would stand together, but who of the lot would stand by us? Why, we don’t even know for sure who would be with us.”
“This case ought never to have been tried by a jury,” complained a third bitterly. “It ought to have been tried in a miners’ court; and if it hadn’t been for those soft heads who were strong for doing things ‘regularly’ instead of sensibly, we’d have had it done that way.”
“Well,” said an older man gravely, “I agree to that. I am going to be governed in my decision not by the merits of the case, but by the fact that I have a family back in the States. I consider my obligations to them greater than to this community.”
I reasoned with them for a long time, bringing to bear all the arguments I had heard advanced at various times during our discussions in Danny Randall’s back room. At last, seeing I could in no manner shake their resolution, I gave in. After all, I could not blame them. The case was to them only one of cattle stealing; they had no chance to realize that it was anything more. Without solicitation on my part they agreed to keep secret my opposition to the verdict of acquittal.